A drop in the French birth rate of 7% in the first half compared to the previous year. This represents 24,000 fewer births. These are the figures from INSEE, the National Institute of Statistics. The trend is not new, but it has been accelerating for a decade.
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This is what Hervé Le Bras, demographer and researcher at the National Institute for Demographic Studies observes: “ a downward trend “: ” We were at 2.1 children per woman in 2012, and we slowly went down until last year to 1.8. England, for example, Sweden, Ireland, undergo the same fall. »
Fertility is declining, especially among the youngest: “ There is an aging in the age at which women have their first and subsequent children. The average age at childbearing has increased by one year over the past ten years. To reach an average age of 31 in 2022.
Higher age means lower fertility. Can the fear of younger generations about the climate future explain this trend? Hervé Le Bras completes with another explanation:
” The women, he said, no longer work much with the famous slogan “Reconcile family life and professional life”, and it is clear that there has been no progress in the fact that men take care of household chores. So there is also, on the part of women, a refusal of motherhood which is undoubtedly linked to their domestic situation. »
More space in nurseries, more equality between women and men: some ways to boost the birth rate, according to specialists.
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